DAR honors students, teacher for excellence

The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution's Corpus Christi Chapter is celebrating several awards

Hallie Trial, a senior at Flour Bluff High School, won the chapter’s 2017-2018 Good Citizenship Scholarship Award. She was one of 10 local high school students nominated by their schools. Two judges determined the winner based on academic achievement, extra-curricular activity and community participation, as well as an essay answering the question “Our American Heritage and Our Responsibility for Preserving It: How has America Advanced the Cause of Freedom in the Rest of the World?”

The Corpus Christi DAR Chapter held an awards ceremony for Trial and the other participants Feb. 16 at First Christian Church.

Sixth-grader Edmund Thomas and eighth-grader Maile Vasquez have won the Corpus Christi Chapter NSDAR American History Essay Contest.

Each year fifth- through eighth-grade students are invited to participate in the contest. This year the students were asked to imagine that they were living in 1918 and tell how the war would impact their daily lives.

Gonzales served in the U. S. Army as a combat medic and has been deployed twice to Iraq. He taught Advanced Placement U.S. History for two years at West Oso High School, one year at Carroll High School and now teaches Advanced Placement U. S. History classes, coaches University Interscholastic League Social Studies and is the co-founder of the National History Honor Society at Veterans Memorial High School.

When introducing a new time period, Gonzales often dresses in character.